Gurbani Raag:Gujari

Fundamentals of Indian Music

Emotion and devotion are the essential characteristics
of Indian music

Among the fine arts, music occupies a very important and significant position. This is the art through which man can be happy himself and make others happy. Music is a great source of entertainment and power. Talented musicians have been able to control the working of the physical nature and of man. It is said that in ancient Greece, Orpheus enchanted not only wild beasts but also birds and insects with his music, and they followed the sound of his lyre. In India, we often see a snake dancing to the tune of the flute of the snake-charmer. It is said that Tansen, the celebrated musician of the court of Emperor Akbar, had the power to bring about rainfall with raga Malhar and create a fire with raga Deepak.
Music in ancient India was regarded as means of divine contemplation and bliss. Today it is regarded mainly as a means of entertainment. In the field of social life, music is a gesture of cordiality. Whenever we are happy, we sing and ask our friends to join us. It expresses our joys and feelings. When we are melancholy and sick, it reduces our sorrows and soothes our feelings. It has the capacity both of assuaging and intensifying different emotions. It has thus a great influence on the mind and heart of man.
Music involves both discipline and freedom. There is the discipline of the svara (note), the laya (tempo), and the tal (rhythm). A note is sung in rhythm and time-beat. On the other hand, the musician if free to make improvisations in his composition within the limits of the raga. In this way, he can show his skill and mastery over the raga he is playing or singing.

Nad (Sound)
Etymologically, ‘Na’ means breath and ‘Da’ means fire or energy. Nad is thus a combination of breath and energy. It implies that the sound produced by living beings emanates from the lungs and comes out from the mouth. There are two kinds of nad: Ahat and Anahat/Anahad. Ahat nad is a sound produced by the collision of two things or by physical manipulation, as for example cymbals and human voice respectively. In both cases, vibrations produce the sound which dies away as the vibration come to an end. This is the sound with which we are concerned in music. Anahad nad is a self-producing sound, or what is called unstruck sound, as for example the music of the spheres due to the vibrations of ether in the upper regions. Rabindranath Tagore wrote in his connection; The life-breath of Thy music runs from sky to sky. It is also called subtle or Sukhsham nad. This is the sound which the yogis or highly spiritual personal hear within themselves when they get into a state of higher consciousness. Goswami observes, The conception of Nad is inseparately connected with the kundalini or the spiral energy which when awakened starts from the muldhara (basic plexus) and reaches the crown of the head[1]. This solemn music is heard only by the spiritually-evolved. Guru Nanak, The word of Guru is the true nad [2].
There are two tones of nad: karkash (harsh) and madhur (sweet). The sound of the roar of guns or of a lion is harsh and unpleasant, while the sound of the peacock or the cuckoo is sweet and soothing. All musical sounds can be differentiated in three ways:
a) By their magnitude, that loudness of intensity which depends on the energy used for their production,
b) By the pitch depending on the number of vibrations per second: the greater the number of vibrations, the greater the pitch.
c) By the quality or timbre, which depends on the nature of vibration and the reactive prominence of the upper partials of the instrument [3].
Nad is related to Dhvani (a kind of sound). Music is concerned with sweet and pleasant dhvani. When a stringed instrument is played, vibrations are produced through the movement of the strings, and these vibrations give the sound when they reach the human ears. These vibrations go in cycles and come back, again they go and come back, and hence the sound continues till the stings come to rest. The unit for measurement of sound vibrations is one second.
Vibrations (cycles) ranging from 96 to 1024 per second can be produced by Indian vocal music, while the human ear is capable of picking up sound frequencies between 20 and 20,000 per second.

Rasa (Emotion)
If raga (melodic pattern) be compared to a tree, rasa, is its fruit. Just as the tree gives fruit, which provides juice, flavour, relish or delight and nutrition, in the same way raga provides all these things symbolically. As one musicologist puts it, Emotions is the food and the artistic consciousness is the tongue. The resulting experience is rasa [4]. Those who practice the raga are able to give the appropriate rasa to the listeners. Just as the fruit produces the seed which later grows into another tree, in the same way, the thath (parent scale) can contribute to the creation of another raga.
Undoubtedly, different types of music evoke different feelings and emotions. Certain sounds produce joy, others grief and yet others affection and tenderness. According to Indian aesthetics, each poem or musical composition produces a certain rasa (emotion). Literally, rasa means juice, but in musical context it implies more than an aesthetic relish-a transcendental experience. Some consider rasa as sentiment, but it is something subtle, even more than an emotion or empathy. Rasa is essentially emotional reaction and awareness of it. The feeling may be pleasant or sad, high or low, sublime or ludicrous, actual or imaginary, furious or peaceful. Every raga or ragini is like a hero or heroine respectively in a certain emotional situation, and the musician or singer is expected to create that very situation to enable the audience to share it. By and large, each raga is supposed to evoke a single emotion. For example, the notes of Khamaj raga are said to evoke erotic feelings or to create a romantic mood. Kafi raga is tranquilizing and pleasing and gives a feeling of peace.
In the system of Indian aesthetics, there are nine emotions called nava rasa. These are: shingara (romantic or erotic feeling), hasya (comic or humorous feeling), karuna (pathetic or sad emotion), rudra (anger or fury), veer (valorous or heroic), bhayanak (fear or terror), vibhatsa (odious or disgusting), adhbuta (wonder or surprise) and shanta (peace and tranquility). American psychologists who made a scientific study of the effects of music found nine kinds of emotional changes in the listeners [5]. Their feelings were similar to the nine rasas. These sentiments become more concretised in drama by the expressions of the eyes, lips, hands and words of the actor. In a musical performance, the audience gets the particular emotion or mood of the raga through the notes and rhythm, the style of singing and graces, the vibrations of the scale, and the feeling and ethos of the singer.